Pleasant pathways

Front matter

i!^i

Frov 3. A 27.

PHEASANT PATHWAYS;

Preface

There are many excellent books in the world, written for the purpose of leading young people into the way of peace. They all have their mission, and are all contributing their meed of help in preparing our youth to be polished stones in the Lord's building. Yet inasmuch as many of them are written in a spirit so stern, or in a style so grave, as to be without attraction sufficient to command the attention of unawakened youth generally, I have long thought that a volume, made attractive by the abundance and interest of its illustrations, yet dealing pungently with the conscience, and appealing faithfully to the hopes and fears of the young mind, might be instrumental in reaching some erring but precious young souls who are inaccessible to the influence of kindred works. This conviction led me to plan and to commence this book some six years ago. My

6 PEEFACE.

editorial and other duties hindered its completion, until, moved by daily reflection on the brevity and uncertainty of life, and by a desire to plead in Christ's behalf with as many of the youth of my times as possible, I employed the spare moments of the past year in bringing it to a conclusion. That I have reached the height of my purpose, or equaled the excellence of Baxter, Alleine, Doddridge, or Pike, I have not the vanity to presume ; that I have sincerely attempted to win some jewels for my Master's crown from among the millions of our great nation's youth, I am clearly conscious. With this consciousness, I send forth my unpretending book — a modest messenger of love — spraying that it may be an evangel to many hearts, and the guide of thousands into "ways of pleasantness and paths of peace." d. w.

Contents

CHAPTER L

THE BUBBLE BURST.

The unhappy Comedian — Hypocrisy of Woridlings — The Author's Apology — The Eeader's Choice — The Child and the Bubble — The World a Bubble — The Figure of Dust — Bewitching Dreams — Dissolved Enchantments — A Supposition and its Application — The Soul's Spirituality unfits it to be satisfied with the World — The European Voyage — The Soul's future Wants — A Madman's Folly — The Emigrant — Competent Witnesses to the World's InsufS.ciency — Solomon — Gelimer — Saladin — Horatio Nelson — Talleyrand — A gay Sinner — Voices of Experience — The great Problem — Appeal . Page 13

Chapter II. How To Enjoy This Life

The Caliph and the broken Casket of Pearls — The Ethiop's Fidelity — A Difi'erence between the Christian and the Worldling stated — A Truth unfolded — A dangerous Idea exposed — Enjoyment not the chief End of Life — How Happiness is won — The Enjoyment of this World not denied to the Pious — What Piety forbids, and what it requires — The Worldling and Christian contrasted — A Problem solved — An old Fable — Its Application — The Pious Man's Advantage stated — Poetic Extract — Dr. Adam Clarke's Opinion — Mahmoud and the Idol at Somnat — How to enjoy the World — A Plea — Poetic Extract. 83

Chapter III. Social Hazards Of A Sinful Life

Dr. Dodd — His early Prospects — His Temptations — His Weakness — His Fall — His ignominious Death — Dr. Dodd the Type

8 CONTEKTS.

of a Class^The Eeader's Inqniiy — The young "Worldling's Danger — The Keader' s Doubt — Sisera in the Tent of Jael — The Worldling's Jael — Deceptiveness of Sin — The Peiil of a sinful Life — Dr. Dodd's first Step to Euin — Folly the first Step in every downward Career — A weak Point in every human Character — Poetical Extract — The greatest of Flatterers — A Scene from History — The only true Protector refused — Is a well-educated but enslaved Conscience a reliable Protection ? — Pride of Character — The fool-hardy Douglass — Unexpected Foes — Anxm- and ^neas — A Caution — Benedict Arnold — Lack of present Inchnation for great Sins no Proof of Safety — The Tiger's Cub — Moral Habits — When rehable — Selfish Morality not reliable — An Ancient Tale— A Test proposed — Probable result — Words of Entreaty — Extract from Quarles 47

Chapter IV. Linked Armor For Tempted Young Souls

Napoleon's Habit of Precaution — Precaution in the Campaign of Life urged — The only reliable Means of Victory — The Weaver's Apprentice — The Missionary — Effect of regenerated Life on the Conscience — Poetic Extracts — High Self-respect begotten by Keligion — Its restraining Power — Love to Christ — The sick young Noble and the loving Peasant Boy — Eestraining Power of Divine Love — Eutherford — Paul — Poetic Extract — Beautiful Idea from Job — Colonel Gardner — Words of Persuasion 72

Chapter V. The Dark Days Of Life

Sayings of Emerson, Longfellow, Bishop Hall, and Holy Writ — Trouble every Man's inevitable Destiny — A grave Question — A Case of Commercial Shipwreck supposed — Is Strength of Mind sufficient in great Trials ? — The two Merchant Princes — Napoleon at Borodino — The Sympathy of Friends — Its probable Worth — Poetic Extract — Uncertain Value of human Friendships — Bereavements — The Widow's Hearth-stone Desolated — x\ comfortless Heart — Saying of an impatient Lady — Of Euripides — Of a bereaved Deist ~ Dogged submis-

CONTENTS. 9

sion described — The Dragon with many Heads — The Christian in Affliction — Napoleon at Wagram — Mental Eepose in Trouble — The Dew-drop that became a Pearl — Pity's Interpretation of Affliction — The Hunter and the Honey- bird — Another use of Afaiction — Servulus — Its all right, Father — Christian Submission — "Words of Entreaty 86

Chapter VI. Pleasures Peculiar To Piety

Curious Legend — The March of Sinful Deeds through a guilty Heart — The Inheritance of the Christian — Peace of God described — Poetic Extract — The Child and its Dead Mother's Picture — Love of Christ — The principal Thing in Piety — The Love of God described — Augustine — An Old Man sitting in God's Shadow — Eutherford's Love — What Divine Love does

— The rich Landholder and the simple Peasant — Hope — Its Eaptures — Peculiarity of a Christian's Hope — Earthly Hope compared with the Heavenly — Sublime conception of Hope by a Deaf Mute — Eutherford's Hope — The Pleasure of Victory — Napoleon at Paris 108

Chapter VII. How To Win Victory In Death

The two Ships — The Storm — The Wreck— The Arrival— Opposite Destinies — What every Mortal's Life must be — Death near at hand — Extract from Schiller — An unpleasant Theme — Eachel's Death-bed — The Fisherman's fear — Two Pacts which make it unpleasant for Sinners to think of Death — Christian Views of Death — Poetic Extract — A priceless Blessing — What must it be to die ? — An unconscious Death — Terrible awakening in Eternity — Fearlessness of some wicked Men in their Death — Gibbon — Hume — Nelson — Ney — The Girondists — Napoleon — A Contrast — Indifference to Death explained

— The Sleeper on the Volcano's Breach — The bold Sinner in Eternity — The Shadow of the Second Death — Goethe's Death-bed — Foretastes of Damnation — Extract from Blair — A Sinner's dying Cry of Despair — Cardinal Mazarin — Voltaire —

10 CONTENTS.

Paine — Eandolph — Hobbes — Bell — Chaloner — A good Man's Death delightful — Mrs. Hamhne — Dr. Moore's Patients — Montmorency — Golding — An old Man on the Brink of Jordan

— Degrees of Triumph — Words of Exhortation — A Christian's Death-song 126

Chapter VIII. Life Beyond The Grave

A charming Spectacle — Outward bound Ships and their Destinies — The Fates of Men — The Soul immortal — The Insect's Task, an Illustration — Greatness of the human Soul — A painful Spectacle — A prosperous Sinner in Hell — A representative Character — The Nature of the Kich Man's Torment — Sin the Fuel of Hell-fire — Pangs of a guilty Conscience in this Life — Sir Walter Scott's Confession — The sick Youth — Eev. C. Simeon — The half-drowned Man — The Murderer — Conscience itself a Hell — Milton's Archangel — Hell an Association of lost Souls — A startling Thought — ^ Heaven visible to the Lost — The Judgment Day — Appeals — Eternal Life — Views from the Land of Beulah — How the Souls of Behevers reach Heaven — Carried by Angels — The bhssful Thought of Safety — The Introduction to heavenly Society — Eaptures of the Saved — A Soul's first Hour in Heaven — Things unknown — A Consolation

— Fullness of Joy — What must it be to be there ? 147

Chapter IX. I Pray Thee Have Me Excused

Parable of the Supper — Disinclination the Parent of Excuses — Reason for considering Excuses — Dread of prospective Duties

— The young Man who felt he should be called to preach — A Warning — Appeals — Ditnculties vanish when the Heart is converted — Fear of Persecution — Fear a fearful thing — Admiral B}Tig — G-eueral Wolfe — Eepresentative Facts — Appeals

— The Rain-drop and the Granite — Persecution yields to Resolution — The young Man and his angry Father — The young Lady and her Betrothed — Courage necessar}' — Excuses of the Gay and Mirtliful — The gay Lady's three Pleasures — Folly of rejecting Religion for the World — How God often deals with

CONTENTS. 11

such — The young Lady who lost her Soul for a Ball — Fear of Failure considered — God seeks to save — Alexander the Great — Earnest Eesolution needed — Words of Exhortation 171

Chapter X. The Procrastinator's Doom

The Prisoner and the fatal Cistern — A Picture of the Eeader's relations to Eternity — Terror of his Condition — Scene in the Carthagenian Senate — The great Choice — Wickedness of the Procrastinator — BLis danger — The Eedcross Knight — Enervating effect of Procrastination — The Maiden and her Elowers — Procrastination Beguiles — The Hoary Fool — Fate of a young Heir — A young Lady cut off — God is in earnest — Presumption Provokes God — The point of Peril — The Lady who was past Feeling — The doomed old Man— The Gay young Man's Death — Pleasant Floating — The scoffing Procrastinator — The young Soldier's Death-bed — Motives to Decision — Love of Jesus — Efforts of Jesus — Self-love — Love of others — Eegard for Parents — A Father's agony over the loss of his Son's Soul — Words of entreaty 192

CHAPTER XL

VOICES OF DUTY.

Nelson's Signal and Napoleon's Proclamation compared — Motives ennoble Actions — The Motive of Duty — Frederick the Great and the Miller — Eights and Duties Eeciprocal — God's Eights as the Owner of Souls — Men's Duties as Creatures — Sin viewed in the light of God's claims — The Ungrateful Guest — The Grateful Servant — The claims of a Benefactor on the Gratitude of the benefitted Parties — God a Benefactor — Duty of grateful Service — The Boy who saved his Mother's Life — Special Benefits impose special Obligations — God as a Eedeemer — His special claim on Man Eedeemed — God should be Loved and Served for what he is in Himself— The Monk and the Picture — Effect of Spiritual Illumination on our Views of God's Character — The more we See of God the less we think of Self — Eesurae of Motives — Words of Entreaty 221

12 CONTENTS.

Chapter XII. What Shall I Do Be Saved?

Warren Hastings — Resolution to be* saved urged — The Magistrate's Purpose — The lUustration applied — A Resolution to seek God possible — He is urged to put forth his Power — The Resolution signed — Joy in Heaven — The Reader conducted to the Cross that he may study himself — The Readers past Life portrayed — The Reader's exceeding Wickedness illustrated

— The highest Proof of Depravity — Confession of Sin urged

— Springs of Penitence unsealed — A Penitential Cry — A DifB.- culty suggested — A Search for favorite Sins Advised — A Divine Light — Restitution — Sinful Business to be abandoned — Pertinent Pacts — The Man who Stole a Bag of Dollars — Effects of Restitution on his Spirit — Restitution necessary to Pardon — What the Spirit taught Freeborn Garrettson — Emancipation necessary to Pardon — A Message from God — A shocking Crop — ^Distiller's Promise — The Penitent urged to believe 244

Chapter XIII. The Faith That Saves Us

Miss Lajolais and the Emperor — Not Justice but Pardon — Regeneration given with Pardon — Faith saves — What is saving Faith — Touching the Hem of Christ's Garment — The Action of saving Faith described — The Highland Boy's Faith in his Father — Putting his Soul into Christ's hands to be pardoned — The dying Child's Faith — God's Promise the Rope that Jesus holds — The sick King and the Prophet's Medicine — Christ's blood Medicine for the Soul — How Faith applies it — A South Sea Islander's Conception of Faith — Rev. Charles Simeon's Faith — Christ the Sinner's Scape-Goat — Different Expressions of the same Idea — Reliance upon Christ alone the principal Thing in Faith — An Allegorical Illustration — Taking Christ's Hand and putting the Hand into his — No Merit in Repentance or Faith — Christ's Blood alone saves — The Sailor's Faith — Just as I am — The Penitent encouraged to believe — Pardon found — The Song of the saved Soul — The Hvmn of Faith — Farewell to the Reader 267

PLEASANT PATHWAYS.

Chapter I. The Bubble Buest

A CELEBRATED and highly popular comedian once waited upon a physician with a request to be cured of an overpowering melancholy. " Go," advised the medical gentleman, "go to the theater and witness the comic performances of "

"Alas!" replied his patient, "I am that comedian! I make others merry, but, while they are laughing at the sallies of my wit, my own heart is as unmoved as a stone. Amid the laughter of delighted multitudes I remain the most sad and miserable of beings myself!"

How true to the experience of all worldlings is this picture of the comedian's heart! He was a hypocrite in his pleasantries : so are all gay sinners. Their eyes flash, their lips smile, their tongues utter sparkling jests, but their hearts silently sigh over a conscious vacuity which they vainly implore the world to fill. Their consciences sting them for degrading spiritual capacities, capable of grasping the Infinite, to the Dead Sea of sensuality, and for casting away eternal life at the bidding of bodily appetites and passions. But in vain does the soul sigh and the conscience sting. The sinner will have his delights. He hides his misery. He dances, sings, jests; his merry laugh rings through the air, and his companions in sin, wondering, think him happy. They will not believe his laugh, like theirs, is sepulchral, and therefore they envy him his felicity. He too, in his turn, is deceived by the merriment of his companions, and envies them. Thus, all envy, all laugh, all are deceived ; all are hypocrites in their sinful pleasantries. Start not, dear reader, from this image of your heart! The fault is not in my mirror but in your character. The most ill-featured person is willing to gaze upon his own face in the glass, and surely you will be equally ready to behold your moral features ; especially as the hand of a friend holds the mirror,

THE BUBBLE BURST. 15

and the motive which prompts him to hold it is the high regard he has for your best interests. If he reveals the strange defeatures sin has wrought upon you, it is only to lead you to One who has power to obliterate them and to cover you with divine beauty ; to Him who can fill the vacuum in your heart, silence its sighings, heal its wounds, and who can create a calm, sweet smile upon your lips which shall be the true index of your feelings. Give me, therefore, your hand, your heart, your serious attention, and I will reason with you concerning the things which make for your peace.

You have chosen the world. The things of this life are your glory, your delight, your supreme good. Your pleasures, your hopes, your thoughts, all center on the things which are seen. You are devoted to the world ; yea, chained to it, as the corpse of Hector was bound to the chariot of Achilles on the plain of Troy. You are at once its admirer and its captive, for " to whom ye yield yourselves servants to ohey^ his servants ye areP Permit me to show you your chosen deity in his true character.

Yonder on the bank of a stream is a little child. He is intently watching the splashing waters as they playfully rush over the pebbles and rocks. Now he dashes at something in the stream. Now he runs along the bank eagerly watching an object which is floating there. How earnest he is ! How weary with his long pursuit! Yet onward! onward still he descends the brook; now running, now grasping after something which as often eludes his touch. But the day wanes. Night mantles the earth with gloom. The child stops, looks round, and weeps bitterly! The scene is strange to his eyes. He has, in the ardor of his pursuit, wandered far from home ! Now that night has come he is weary, faint, lost !

What has the child been seeking all day *?

He saw a bright bubble on the clear waters sparkling in the sunbeam's light. It charmed him. He pursued it. It eluded his grasp, yet still decoyed him down the stream. He sought the worthless thing with all the earnestness of his young heart, missed it, and was lost !

Behold in this child an image of yourself! See in his misfortune a figure of your own ruin ! For worthless and false as that bubble is the world you seek. Your enthusiasm in its pursuit is madness. Every step you take leads you farther away from God, the soul's true home, and hurries you toward the region of desolation, sorrow, and death.

"The world passeth away and the lust thereof," is an inscription ^\T*itten with the pencil of the Almighty over the archway of the world. The poet has sung, that

" This world is all a fleeting show,

For man's illusion given ; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow :

There 's nothing true but heaven."

Experience, dearly purchased experience too, has testified to the same effect. It is said that a lady once came suddenly upon an Etrurian monument, in which there was just aperture enough to see, for a moment only, a sitting figure with its look and drapery of more than a thousand years. She beheld it for a few seconds, preserved only in the stillness of antiquity, when it fell to dust at her very breathing. Such is the world to its pursuers, beautiful in perspective, dust in possession !

These testimonies you now find it difficult to believe. From the gay dreamland of your youth the world appears a scene of unsurpassed loveliness and peerless beauty. You see nothing but bewitching gardens and sunny vales tastefully filled with green trees, gay singing birds warbling delicious music, lovely flowers, and cool fountains glancing in the sunbeams. To these you add multitudes of joyous youth who sport away the flying hours in the highest excitement of unmingled delight. Such to your imagination is the brilliant future of a worldly life !

Alas ! alas ! My heart is pained at the bare thought of your certain disappointment, for full well I know that these dreams will have no fulfillment. These ideal pictures, created by the enchantments of your fancy, will change to rude, rough, bitter realities, when touched by the wand of that more than magician. Experience. Could I convince you of this, young pilgrim in the journey of life, you might be saved from many an hour of sorrow, perhaps from the jaws of destruction itself. Open your heart, therefore, to conviction, for " a wise man will hear^ and will increase learning ; and^ a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels,^^

Suppose, for a moment, that you were suffering very severely from hunger, and were even on the point of actual starvation. In this extremity you

THE BUBBLE BURST. 19

look imploringly toward an approaching friend, and with your expiring strength exclaim, " Give me food for pity's sake ! I am dying of hunger ! Give me something to eat, my friend !"

Your friend, gazing upon you with a pitying eye, * promises to bring you instant relief. He hastens away, but speedily returns laden with dusty tomes, the works of the ablest minds and profoundest thinkers among mankind. Throwing thena into your arms, he exclaims, " Here, my friend, are some of the finest books extant. They contain the loftiest productions of genius, and teem with the noblest ideas. Feed upon them freely and satisfy your gnawing hunger."

I can easily imagine the look of wonder and indignation with which you would receive this strange communication, and the sharpness of the tone in which you would cry, " Books ! Ideas ! I want bread^ not ideas ! Who ever heard of ideas being offered to a man in my condition ? Sir, if you pity me, give me bread P''

Now I contend that such an offer of ideas to satisfy the pains of hunger would be as truly consistent as is your attempt to gratify the wants of your soul with the world. Your friend is supposed to offer thoughts — immaterial ideas — to satisfy a material ov physical want. You offer your spiritual nature material food, and command it to be satisfied ! Is not the supposition as consistent as the fact ? Is not the one thing as clearly impossible as the other ?

Remember, therefore, that the high nature you possess, the spirituality of your inner principle, renders satisfaction in the things of this world impossible. The lofty aspirations, the earnest yearnings of your spiritual nature, will ever turn with unutterable disgust from " all that is in the world^ the lust of the fleshy and the lust of the eyes^ and the pride of life^'^ as beneath the demands of its infinitely superior capacities. It aspires after communion with the mind of God, it longs to climb eternal heights. Will you doom it to trail its glories in the dust? You may crush its noble aspirings. You may enslave it to the fleshly and the visible, but in so doing you insure its present uneasiness and its eternal misery. Is the world worth the price ?

Permit me to bring another illustration to this great question. Imagine yourself bound to take a European voyage. Your residence is some hundred

THE BUBBLE BUKST. 21

miles or more from, the port of embarkation. You gather your outfit, pack your trunks, and take your departure from home. But such has been the confusion attending your preparations, and the excitement of leaving your friends, that, after starting, you find yourself without letters of introduction, and with barely means enough to carry you to the port from whence your vessel is to sail. Now, with this discovery, could you take any real pleasure on your journey ? The river boat in which you sailed might be as gorgeous in her appointments and furniture as the palace of an Eastern calif The scenery around you might be as lovely as the vale of Tempe. The companions of your voyage as cheerful as Mirth. The table furnished with all imaginable delicacies. Yet a thought of your certain embarrassment at the termination of your inland journey would be a frost upon your heart, effectually cooling the ardor of enjoyment. "What shall I do without means or friends?" would be the ghostlike question haunting you every hour, filling you with unrest and alarm.

Do you comprehend my meaning, traveler to the boundless future ? know you not that

" Our lives are rivers, gliding free To that iinfatiiorQed, boundless sea, The silent grave ?"

Know you not also that your immortal soul is conscious of wants beyond the quiet tomb ? Is it enough to offer that undying nature gifts and goods which must he left at the grave'' s mouth ? Granting that your beloved pleasures were sufficiently exalted to meet the present wants of your inner life, yet, gazing on the truth that " we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out," can they give your soul rest? Will not that immortal thing within you often stand gazing into the infinite, beholding the unmeasured cycles of eternity in their stupendous vastness, and feeling an indestructible consciousness that its duration is as unlimited as that eternity'? Does not the knowledge that it has no passports, no preparation for that voyage into immensity, cause it to shrink fearfully from its perils 1 And can the costliest delights of earth quiet its fears or satisfy its desires ? Nay ! It is impossible ! Your immortal nature cries aloud for sources of enjoyment as enduring as itself. Give it this world only, and you doom it to disquiet, fear, and sorrow.

What would you say to a man who should seriously declare, " I will hereafter see with my ears and hear with my eyes /"

" I should pronounce him a madman," you reply.

" But why call him a madman, my friend ?"

" Why, indeed ! Could he be less than mad who should pretend to violate the order of God? God has adapted the eye to the nature of light, the ear to the nature of sound, and he must be mad indeed who can talk of reversing this method of seeing and hearing. Why, sir, the thing is impossible, the idea madness, the pretension folly !"

All this is true, and proves you, gay worldling, to be a madman indeed. For you are attempting the daring, the impossible folly of violating the order of God ! Not, to be sure, in threatening to see with your ears, but in resolving to be happy " without God,^"^ As truly as he has appointed the eye to see, the ear to hear, has he also decreed that the soul of man shall find its pleasure in his service. Over the grand archway of human life he has graven this inscription for the guidance of every traveler : " Incline your ear and come unto me : Hear and your soul shall live."

But you have made a covenant with earthborn pleasure. You have determined "to live" without inclining your ear or coming unto God. In defiance of God's order, and of the established fact that no man has ever found true pleasure out of Him any more than any person has been able to hear with his eyes^ you will " spend money for that which is not hread^ and your labor for that which satisfeth not.^^ Is not this madness^ Forbear, then, vain man, to fight against God ! Your folly has lasted sufficiently long already. Let a pious poet reason with you, who asks

" For the bright world of

Pure and boiindless love,

What hast thou found ? Alas, a narrow room !

Put out that light,

Eestore thy soul its sight,

For better 't is to dwell in outward gloom,

Than loj the vile body's eye

To rob the soul of its infinity."

If a man were about to emigrate to some far-off land, and to risk his whole fortune in the enterprise, he would assuredly listen to the words of experience. However bright the pictures of his fancy, however ardent his pantings after his imaginary elysium, he would certainly pause if credible men, returning from that new world of his hopes, should uniformly testify that although verdant as paradise and fruitful as Eden, a deadly malaria poisoned the atmosphere and made it a land of graves. Such testimony would surely cause a sane mind to change its purposes, and shun a danger so obvious and undeniable, "/or a wise man feareth and departeth from evil ; hut the fool rageth and is confident."

Now I am able to offer you credible testimony from competent judges concerning the incapacity of this perishing world to give you the happiness it so falsely promises, and which you so credulously expect. Against your hopes lies the fact that, thus far, the world has not fulfilled its promises to you. Your present state is well described by one who tried your god faithfully, and said of his youth,

"I was not happy, but I knew not then That happy I was never doom'd to be."

And this, if all past experience is not illusion, will be your sad conclusion if you continue the slave of the world. To feel convinced of this, study well the following testimonies :

King Solomon tried an experiment with the world.

He wished to know if it contained aught that could confer real bliss. He had abundant means for his purposes. He tried the pleasures of wine, of feasting, of lust, of music, of building, of horticulture, of wealth, of power, of ambition, of greatness. In describing his attempt he says :

" Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy!"

Thus he tried the world in all its forms. He brought all its resources to the test. Never, perhaps, has moi^tal man had equal opportunity to make such a trial of its power. What is his verdict? Hear it, child of pleasure! Ponder it well and deeply. " Behold !" he exclaims, after reviewing his experience, " behold, all was vanity and vexation OF spirit !"